Xtranormal to script a short animated film

This is another ELTAS Tech Tools Day task.

Pre-task thinking:

• What do your students get out of listening to and writing out dialogues?
• How is students having puppets or cartoon characters speak the dialogue different from speaking it themselves?
• How important is it to your students to present the fruits of their learning to others?
• Do you/ How do you correct dialogues?
  

Some uses for working with dialogues:

• review the language of natural conversation
• catch typical mistakes
  
• practice functional language

Added value in videos:

• become aware of body language and sounds in conversation

Added value in an easy-to-use app:

• Fun and motivation! Varieté et surprise! Coolness factor!
  

Xtranormal is an easy to use "drag and drop 3D animation" program. The "Text-To-Movie" function lets you or your students set the scene, choose characters, type in a dialogue, add body language etc. and turn it into a movie.

Creating a movie and saving it as work in progress is free. That's all you need to have your students view yours and work on making one themselves.

BUT to publish an Xtranormal video, whether your own or your student's work, on a website to show it to others, costs $$. You have to buy points. How many does not become clear. Don't miss Darren Elliott's excellent rant about this new aspect of working with online tools.

Working with what we have:

In my video project, an assstant is being interviewed for a company magazine. As work in progress, I can only show it to you if I am logged in. We could work on it collectively on one computer, with one carrying out the edits the others suggest. For you to be able to access and simply view the video on your own, it would have to be published.


How to edit:

I've made a SHORT VIDEO of my editing this project inside Xtranormal.

Task 1:
We could edit my project together. (Link for me.)

Task 2:
See what other teachers are doing and comment on their ideas:

• Ana Maria Mendez has a lesson plan for phrasal verbs using Xtranormal.
• ESP writer Jeremy Day has used Xtranormal to present a script and do language work, and shows how (and how not to) in his blog, Specific English.
• Kathy Niebuhr has guestposted on Shelly Terrell's Teacher Reboot Camp blog about how she uses it in elementary school, including a video announcement.
  
• Note: The Xtranormal YouTube channel contains highly entertaining, completely inappropriate material. The Xtranormal site itself has more suitable videos.
  
• Please add any ideas and blogposts you know of in the comments below.
  

Task 3:
Create a short dialogue using Xtranormal. Make it as natural as possible.

• Go to http://www.xtranormal.com and sign up.
  
• Use a showpack with two characters to make a text-to-movie video.
• adapt the characters in the "Design the scene" area at the bottom of the page. Note that you can choose from a wide range of voices/ nationalities.
  
• Write the script and "direct the action" by dragging in features and selecting options.
• Preview and save.
• Sorry: We can't share unless you buy credit. :(

Özge Karaoğlu's Blog

Many members of MELTA (our Munich English Language Teachers Association, which this blog "belongs" to) are getting more and more interested in teaching young learners. Next to Business English, YL seem to be our main target group.

Now, if any of you YL teachers don't know her yet, there's no time like the present to meet Özge Karaoğlu, a kindergarten teacher in Istanbul whose blog ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org is a trove of technical innovations for teaching YL. She won the MEDEA Award for Creativity and Innovation 2009 for Daisy and Drago, a series of animated films her kindergarten pupils made. She had them develop and draw the story, and speak the texts and record their voices, so it is absolutely do-it-yourself, using high tech to create something absolutely delightful and original. It's the second feature of the MEDEA Showreel, following right after the Overall Award Winner 2009 (from 2:23):




She guest-blogged on this project on Ken Wilson's great blog, and I'd like to send you all to her post there. She wrote:

I do enjoy being a kindergarten teacher; it makes me feel I am important for someone else and it is very rewarding. Children inspire me every day. You can do as many projects as you can do with older kids. This amazes you and others more, because they are so young and enthusiastic and can do great things in spite of their limited world, with their limited language. This is the story of how we filmed and fulfilled our dreams.

Also: Visit the Daisy and Drago wiki, which contains information on the book Özge wrote and based the project on, and the making of!

Making animated films with your students

Want to have students create dialogues and watch them being played by animated characters with funny robot voices? Your students and you can make an animated movie online for free by going to www.xtranormal.com. Here is a sample, made just for teachers :)



Tweeted by Graham Stanley